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Short attention span

We've got tips for helping your school-ager get focused

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Originally published in Today's Parent January 2009

I found it almost impossible to read books to Elizabeth because she just wouldn’t sit still,” says Laura Lyons.* “She would pretty much do somersaults while I was trying to read her a story, and it drove me crazy.”

“Being fidgety” is what Lyons calls it. Six-year-old Elizabeth has a short attention span and struggles to stick with a project or task for very long.

Range in attention spans
As with so many things in children’s development, there’s a range in attention spans — some children can pay attention for considerably longer than others. For Elizabeth and kids like her, their maximum focused time is somewhat less than the average.

Aaron Senitt, who teaches a grade- two/three split class in Guelph, Ont., says that when the bell rings in his classroom, some of the kids will have been “done” for several minutes, while others will groan because they want to continue cutting and pasting and working on their assignment.

While this difference seems to be innate to a certain extent, Senitt says that teachers and parents can do a lot to help the kids who find staying on track more difficult. “It’s often the context,” he explains. “Sitting down at a desk is unnatural for a lot of children. For others, it’s not so much that they can’t pay attention, but that they are paying attention to other things that interest them more, like the cool eraser the student in the next row is using.”

*Name changed by request.

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